Nothing Changes, Everything Does
by Vintage Reign
Summary: Its ten years from when S5 leaves off...and the next generation is on its way to becoming the next Teen Titans. BBRae,RobStar,CyBee,KFJinx. Well written fluff, character oriented. Rated T for safety.
1. The New World, The Old One

Nothing Changes, Everything Does

"May the dreams of your past be the reality of your future." --Anonymous

The day was hot and bleary; heat mirages glanced off the top of Titan's tower like a desert, and the sleepy eyed citizens of Jump City went about their days. A pale young woman sat quietly at the edge of the heat soaked rooftop, her shoulder length purple hair dampening with sweat. Her breaths were deep, calming, quietly retreating to her own inner sanctum. Her own world.

Raven sighed peacefully. It had been a long time since she had done this. Meditated properly.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inha--

"Waaaaaaaaaaah!"

Despite herself, the empathy's teeth grinded. She clenched one fist, then let her air out with a hiss.

_Maybe it will just…_

"Waaaaaaaaah!" the wailing continued, slightly muffled by the two floors of concrete between her and the child.

Raven pressed her fingers to her temples, and contemplated going to help Starfire. Unnecessary, in the end, but she should be checking on Corbin soon. He was a late sleeper, like his father, but suffered occasionally from vivid and terrifying dreams. That was like his mother.

And then there was Llin. Little Llin. One of the quietest, most thoughtful children anyone had ever seen. People said she acted ten times her age, always having a reason for everything, speaking slowly and reasonably. She smiled often, a bittersweet smile, as if she had seen too much in her three years on the planet. Llinos laughed even less, but when she did, it was enchanting. Her laugh made the people around stop to hear the noise like wind chimes in a spring breeze.

Wayne continued to scream, snapping the image of her green skinned, purple haired daughter from Raven's mind.

"My god, that kid's power is going to be a sonic scream," a familiar voice said from behind her. The purple haired woman turned around slowly.

"I didn't hear you come up."

"Maybe I didn't want you to."

"And why would that be?" she asked playfully, striding over to him and putting a pale finger on his shoulder.

The young green man paused a second, taking in her beautiful face, the soft sound of her voice.

"You've changed so much," Changeling said quietly, pulling her chin up to his with a finger.

"In a good way?"

"Yeah…I mean, of course. I'd like to think it was all me Rae, but…" suddenly words seemed to fail him. The confident woman standing before him was so different from the Raven he had known ten years ago. He could still see the shy, lonely girl, swallowed by her blue cloak, pulling away from the world. But that girl was only a memory, a fading glance at days not many cared to remember.

At the time, Garfield had been her light. He had lit up her world and her heart. And he still did, every time he made her lip crick or her face crack into a grin he had pulled her a little further out of sadness.

"I know," Raven said quietly, putting the finger from his shoulder now to his lips, "you've changed too. I was just thinking about…everything. Feels like so long ago you would follow me up here like a little puppy and…"

"Hey, hey now, don't go hating on the puppies," Changeling joked. Raven's lip twitched involuntarily.

"By the way…Star says she wants to get Joy a puppy," the pale empath said, turning with her husband towards the metal door.

* * *

Nightwing rolled over on his side, moving his arm to where his wife was supposedly lying. His fingers met air, and he sat bolt upright instantly. Despite the fact that it had been quiet for the last few days, the leader still maintained his combat ready instincts. However, with a newborn and a five-year-old, it was quite possible she had just gotten up to stop Wayne from falling out a window or eating the drapery.

"Waaaaaaaah!"

Dick Grayson sighed, and swung his legs around the side of the four poster, sliding on a t-shirt over sweats.

He glanced in the mirror, and held his gaze there for a second. Almost everything had changed, and yet nothing had. His hair was longer, brushing down in a shiny layered cut that hit the nape of his neck at its longest point. The same black and white mask given to him by his mentor so many years ago. Features that were still handsome, although more gentlemanly now than the boyish attractiveness of ten years ago.

Dick Grayson was looking at Nightwing, and yet there in the mirror was Robin. Robin in his green and red uniform, spiky hair, boyish grin.

Probably no one but him had remembered.

Heck, no one but him even knew the date.

But August 1st was the day when everything had changed for him.

The day he had met his team, the Titans.

Seventeen years ago, to the day.

His musing, however, was interrupted by a loud, anxious voice coming from the room adjacent to his.

"Dad!" the little girl's voice cried.

Nightwing opened the sliding door into the room his daughter and son shared. Wayne wasn't in his crib, a bouncy child with scarlet hair hopping nervously on the bed.

"Yea sweetie? What's up?"

"Daddy," Joy said, plopping down with the momentum from a bounce on the bed, "I'm hungry."

"Where's your mom?" Dick asked, "and stop bouncing, Joy. That's what the trampoline in the training room is for."

"You know, if you would just get me a trampoline in my room like I wanted I wouldn't have to…"

"I told your mom that we should. She just thinks you might flip over Wayne and hurt yourself or something," her father said patiently. He wanted to encourage acrobatics at the earliest age, like he had done in the circus, but Star wouldn't agree to it.

"Aw, Dad, c'mon, I won't get hurt! Watch this!"

Despite himself, Nightwing grinned and moved to spot her. Her thin little body bounced three times on the bed to gain momentum, her pink bob flying every which way. Then she flipped backwards twice, her feet never touching the mattress, gravity seeming to have no power over her for a second.

Her dad grabbed her out of the air and threw her on the bed, tickling her mercilessly. Joy screamed and giggled in delight, before he finally relented.

"Nice work, kid. Next time work on incorporating a kick into it though," Dick said encouragingly, leading her out of the room by her hand.

"Ok, dad. So I can kick the bad guys?" Joy asked earnestly, her little face tilted admiringly up at him while they walked.

"Exactly. They'll never know what hit 'em. Let's go get some breakfast."

* * *

Ok, this was originally a one shot (heh, heh) but that is clearly a lost cause. They are just too much fun to write about! And I haven't introduced all the characters yet, but I can tell you some cool reasons for my kid names.

*Not introduced yet.

Corbin=little raven or little blackbird

Llinthos=a green gemstone in Welsh

Wayne=Batman's last name, duh!

Joy=Well, Starfire did have a pick of the names…

*Abelle=Spanish word derived from "bee" (guess whose kid this is…)

*Zongmeng (Zong)=nimble, speedy

*Ahti=Finnish god of magic (note: brother of Zong)

And, fyi, I don't really care if you think the names are weird. I dislike writing about people with boring names. It's more fun to type "Zongmeng" than "Alex" or something.

Please review if you like! Or even if you don't!


	2. Kitchen Chaos

Thanks to my great reviewers, Guardy and YoungTitan213: they really encouraged me to keep going, so check out some of their great writing if you like this!

* * *

The kitchen was chaos. Wayne was seated in his sleek chrome high chair, still wailing and throwing pieces of Cheerios into the air. The eight-month-old's shock of black hair was full of pieces of whole wheat cereal, his round cheeks red from crying. A young woman with strawberry-cinnamon hair was bent over him, trying to calm her son through murmuring and the proffering of the flung Cheerios.

A small, green girl with purple eyes like her mothers was perched at the edge of her chair, nibbling serenely on Frosted Mini-Wheats. Llinos' face was angular and thinner than most toddlers, her features delicately placed.

Her pale brother sat across the table from her, scarfing down thick slices of bacon while plugging his ears to the deafening noise. Corbin chatted animatedly to a girl with frizzy dark hair and a deep tan, fidgetting next to Llin.

"C'mon 'Belle! You know you wanna go train after breakfast," the eight-year-old waggled his eyebrows at her. Raven, clearing Llin's dishes, stopped for a second. Her son's expression was so much like what Beast Boy had done for her when they was young. The same sparkle in his eyes, same ever-present grin, even his father's green hair and snaggletooth.

Despite herself, little bittersweet pools of saltwater began to form in the empath's dark eyes.

"I don't think so Bubblebutt…you'd probably drop somethin' on my face," Abelle replied sassily, using the embarrassing nickname she'd created for him.

"I won't! I did that once, and it was really heavy!" Corbin protested.

The seven-year-old stuck her tongue out at him.

"Ya, right. I coulda lifted it."

"Hey, guys, if you keep flirting I might be able to get a reservation at _Chez Cupid _for you both on Saturday night," Changeling called sarcastically from the kitchen, putting an arm around his wife.

"Eww!"

"Blech! What makes you think I'd ever date _him_?" Abelle said, scrunching her face up in disgust but stifling a giggle.

"Da-ad! Shut up!" Corbin said, leaning his arm out to smack his father but falling backwards out of his chair in the process.

The seven-year-old girl was in hysterics instantly.

Llin giggled softly.

Even Wayne stopped crying to clap and laugh delightedly.

The only person not amused was the pale, fanged boy on the floor, rubbing his head.

"Mmf," he grunted, "Dad!"

"Yes…?" Garfield asked innocently, earning a smile from Raven.

"What's going on in here?" the leader's voice interrupted jokingly as the steel door slid open, his hand still around his daughter's.

"Buddle-Butt fell out of his chair!" Llin giggled again, pointing a green finger at her brother, still sprawling on the floor.

Joy laughed loudly, and clambered in beside the green toddler.

"And I do not receive a good morning hug?" Starfire asked her daughter pointedly while removing Wayne from his chair.

"Oops. Sorry Mommy." The red headed child climbed onto the table and crawled across it, jumping off at the end. She sprinted towards her mother, still holding the baby, and gave her legs a tight squeeze.

"Can I give Wayne a hug too?" Joy asked, putting her hands up for her brother.

Star paused for a minute, glancing over at Dick. He nodded, smiling a little, and she passed the dark haired baby down to her daughter.

To no one's surprise, the five-year-old had no trouble holding the weight, and squeezed his little pudgy body tightly. Wayne looked slightly surprised, but placed both his arms around her neck in the semblance of a hug.

"There," Joy said contentedly, handing the baby back up to her mother and scrambling across to get in her seat beside Llin again.

"You shouldn't be climbing on the table," Raven said to Joy in a flat voice, but the child merely nodded as toast was brought to her by her father.

Meanwhile, Corbin had eventually righted himself, and smacked the still laughing Abelle on the shoulder.

"It wasn't _that _funny," the boy grumbled, while the girl gasped for breath.

"Well…maybe it was. It was so funny I've decided I'll go training with you," 'Belle stated decisively, and Corbin grinned.

The pair began to retreat to the gym, but Nightwing stopped them.

"Are you guys going to train by yourselves?" he asked, and both the kids sighed.

"Ugh, c'mon, please Nightwing? We aren't gonna have you people around when we fight bad guys!" Corbin protested, but the leader put up his hand.

"Raven or Changeling, could you watch these guys to make sure they don't do anything _too _stupid?"

"I ain't the one you should worry about," Abelle said, putting her hands on her hips in a gesture so like her mother's.

"Sure…we can both go if the dishes are done," Changeling said, taking his wife by the hand and leading the little parade out the door.

Wayne waved his hand at them from over Starfire's shoulder as they went.

* * *

Well, here we are, my second chapter…grr, I still haven't gotten Cy and Bee in here yet, or KF and Jinx! Well, I cross my heart they will be here next chapter, it's just that when I picture all of it like a play and I didn't see them entering in that scene. And Abelle is here, which begs the question: where are her parents? Anyhow, if you have any ideas for a new "upgraded" Cy costume or code names for Corbin, Abelle, Llinos, Joy, or Wayne, feel free to post them on a review or PM me!


	3. Her Mother's Daughter

"Belle, you should move your hip more with the kick," a tall muscular man said jokingly, moving to hold his daughter's leg in the right form.

Corbin slowed a little on the balance bar, which he had been flipping around in double somersaults, to watch the girl interact with her father. The eight-year-old would never admit it, but he liked her best when her kinky hair was in a sweaty pony tail and she was kicking the crap out of a punching bag.

"'Kay, Dad, I got it, I got it!" she said, brushing him off with a hand and adjusting her hip on the roundhouse.

"Oh, rejected!" Changeling called from under the bar bells.

"Please, at least I can lift more than fifty!" Cyborg retorted, and Changeling slowed a bit. It had been a while since they had just been alone…even best friends don't have time for each other with kids and spouses and…

Life had, eventually, caught up with them.

The half robot no longer resembled a robot. After a huge upgrade just before Abelle was born, he had placed most of the microchips under his skin. His appearance was now that of an average human, while more muscular than most, except for a sleek chrome hand the transformed into his trust sonic cannon. Victor's formerly red eye was replaced by one dark lense on his dark, shaved head and charismatic features.

The formerly childish face of Garfield had become an attractive, though still youthful, green countenance. He no longer wore the outfit of the doom patrol, but a simple black unitard with dark green shorts and shirt on top of it.

"Corbin," Raven said flatly, "you need to keep doing the aerial somersaults…even if you can't transform into a monkey yet you still need the motions."

The pale boy sighed, mopping the sweat off the back of his neck. In the bedtime stories that his parents told to him, it had seemed to easy to change. "Beast Boy" could change into a bird while he was falling, change into five different animals in five separate seconds.

Dad didn't blame him, of course. After all, he had only received half of the mutation. Still, Corbin sometimes was annoyed that Llin could already turn into small animals on occasion while he was stuck with either human or a gray dog.

"You heard your mom," Garfield grunted as he lifted the weight, "get on with it."

"Monkey? He still smells like one," Abelle said, "Dad, where are my wings?"

"Huh?" Cyborg grunted from under the weight bench next to Changeling's.

"My wings!" she said exasperatedly, slowly the rocking punching bag with her hands.

"Uh…"

"They're in the cabinet, sweetie," a small, dark skinned woman in a striped tank top said, flitting in through the door, "what would you people do without me to keep the place in order?"

"The consequences would be too dire to contemplate," Raven said sarcastically, and flashed a smile across the room at Bee. Oddly enough, when Bumblebee had moved to the Tower after her engagement, the two had become close friends, even more so now that their children were inseperable.

Bumblebee's daughter followed her mother to the cabinet, pulling out a shiny pair of wings resembling her mothers, except laced with chips and tiny glowing wires visible through the translucent surface. Abelle expertly placed the wings into tiny slots in her deeply tanned skin that seemed to emerge through slits in her orange tank. The genetics of her mom's mutation hadn't transferred fully to 'Belle, but her back accomadated the cybernetic wings as if she had been wearing them all her life.

Despite himself, Corbin glanced over from his position on the gymnastics bar.

She was flitting around now easily, landing kicks to the bag from the top and quick punches to its sides.

The green Titan lowered his last weight slowly, and wiped a few beads of sweat from his brow.

"I think this is my cue to exit," he announced to the room and, finding no protest, he started to open the door.

"Check on Llin, will you? I think she's still with Dick and Star, but you should make sure," Raven said softly as she helped Corbin clamber down off the bar.

"Yes, honey," Changeling called over his shoulder just as the door slid shut.

* * *

"Want the Mini Wheats peas," Llin said politely, reaching a tiny green hand towards the box Joy was stuffing her face with.

"Huh?" she said, looking up, her mouth filled like a chipmunk's with the cereal.

"Want Mini Wheats peas," the green toddler said again, impatiently, and held her hand out as if something should happen.

"But I'm not finished eating," Joy said while crunching the frosted wheat in her mouth.

No sooner were the words out of the red head's mouth when the box when enveloped in a dark black energy and levitated straight to Llin's high chair.

The toddler giggled and clapped her hands, but Joy was not as amused.

"Llin, that was my breakfast!" Joy said poutily, folding her arms.

"You still have toast," her father called sarcastically from the kitchen, "those Mini Wheats were Llin's honey."

"No! I don't want toast! I wanted Mini Wheats!"

"Joy, you are not having Mini Wheats. You can eat your toast and let Llin have them, or you can simply not eat breakfast," Nightwing said, standing menacingly over his daughter.

The girl deliberated between Llin, who was eating each biscuit of the cereal methodically, and the cold toast on her plate.

"Fine," the little girl pouted, and slumped over in her seat. She bit off an edge of the toast as if it might have been poison, but resigned herself to the crunching of the bread eventually.

"What's fine?" a humorous voice asked from the entryway, causing Joy to turn a full 180 in her chair.

"Daddy!" Llin called happily, "I got box to fly like Mommy!"

Her father looked slightly taken aback for a moment, then quickly replaced the anxiousness with a grin.

"Did she really…" Changeling mouthed to Nightwing when he rounded the corner into the kitchen.

"You know, she wasn't _my _idea," the leader said jokingly, and Garfield chuckled nervously.

"She is her mother's daughter…"


	4. Fairytales

"Zong, get your little butt over here or so help me I will ground you for the rest of your life!" a slim, pale skinned woman called angrily to an orange haired blur streaking past her.

"Wally, get out here and catch your son please," Jinx said exasperatedly, leaning on the side of the family "car."

"What, you can't just blow him up?" he replied jokingly, while his wife gave him a death glare.

"Look, buddy, this whole thing was really--"

"Mom! Zong just knocked over Speedy's database thing!" Ahti yelled, his straight blonde hair whipping around as he skidded to a stop.

"Ahti, please tell your mother to blow your brother up," Flash said to his son, who giggled slightly.

"Am I the _only _one who thinks that being late is _not _funny?" Jinx muttered to herself.

"Oh, fine, I'll go get him sweetie," Wally relented, and sprinted off through the door.

"Honestly…Ahti, get in the ship please, we're already five minutes late."

"Whose late for what?" a tall, sleek haired man asked while he drifted in from the room adjacent to the hanger bay.

"Everything," Jinx said sarcastically as her blonde son clambered into the T-Ship II.

"Hmm, that seems unlikely," Garth replied good-naturedly, "be a good boy in school, 'Tee."

"You know he will," the slim pink haired female said from the front seat, "Let's move it Zong!"

The engines hummed over the noise of pattering feet as the captured orange bundle in his father's arms was placed in the back seat.

"At ease, soldier," Wally grinned, saluting to his wife. Jinx rolled her eyes in response.

The ship blasted out of the removable roof with a low pitched whine, and both the boys kept quiet the entire ride.

* * *

"This is Raven, I uh…Llin, don't eat that. Sorry, just wondering where--"

"Hi 'Tee!" the top of a bright pink head appeared at the bottom of Raven's transmission.

"Corbin get your…mmf! Quit it you two!" a muffled voice was yelling in the background. Ahti and Zong peered around the seats at the screen which was showing an intense wrestling match between a small green cat and a larger gray dog.

"Sorry, when are you getting here?" Raven asked, managing to position herself in front of the screen again.

"Are you wearing your costume 'Tee?" Joy said in the flirtiest way possible for a five year old from, batting her eyelashes like a Barbie doll in a commercial.

"We're landing in five," Jinx said to the screen, "sorry we're late, its been a long morning."

"Uh huh…Llin, honey don't--" the screen fizzled out with what sounded like an exploding sofa.

"Ahti has a girlfriend, Ahti has a girlfriend!" Zong taunted his younger brother.

"Do not, do not, do _not_!" Ahti yelled in response, smacking his older sibling on the shoulder.

"No hitting!" Jinx said angrily, "I can't drive with you two acting like idiots!"

The boys sighed, and slumped over in their seats.

It was quiet for maybe three seconds.

A little blue tendril of electricity crept across the seat and zapped Zong from behind.

"Ow! Mom!" the older boy yelled, rubbing his behind and glaring at the giggling Ahti.

Jinx thunked her head on the dashboard with a groan. She had wanted girls, but no…Wally always got his way, even if by chance.

She glanced back at her nine and six year old, one the spitting image of his father, the other a little blonde twig of a boy. It seemed that Ahti had inherited her curse of bad luck, although she had always told him it was simply magic with no moral denomination. And Zongmeng was just as fast and cocky as Kid Flash had been when she had met him so many years ago. Sometimes Jinx half expected for her son to turn up with a red rose on the scene of the crime.

Her grimacing mouth creased into a slight smile remembering the day she had realized there was someone on earth who had cared about her.

* * *

"…and that was the end of Trigon," Raven said slowly, relishing every word and leaving its tingling taste on her tongue. Each child was rapt, completely drawn in, eyes wide in a far away place full of magic and mystery.

Like any fairytale, really. Just get a good enough story teller and it becomes reality for the child who listens.

The only difference was that for each of seven children sitting on the floor of Raven's old bedroom, now the main classroom for the young Titans, the tales of Trigon and Slade were reality. And not just tales, but survival stories. Stories so that even when all hope had seemed to fade from their grasp, they could think of their parents and hold on to life.

Wayne, sitting on Starfire's lap, began clapping his hands loudly, and his mother laughed.

"You should tell stories more often, Raven. It seems you have a talent for it," Starfire smiled up from her cross legged position on the floor.

"Tell again please," Llin said politely, getting up from her mini lotus on the floor and running over to hug her mother's leg which dangled down from an armchair.

The purple haired woman looked down at her tiny, beautiful emerald face and gave a soft smile.

"I don't think so. But, before you split off, we need to go over the basic principles of the story. Can I have a volunteer?" she asked the assembled group as Abelle's hand shot up.

"Well, I guess since even though you were supposed to be all evil in your destiny and destroy the world, you ended up saving it, right? So, even though the prophecy said one thing…"

"I did another. So you mean to say that my story is proof the destiny doesn't exist? That we choose our own fates?"

"Uh huh. And last week when you told about Starfire and the time dude," Corbin started in from his ever present place beside Abelle.

"Exactly. If that future had come true, if there really was destiny, you all wouldn't exist," Starfire said while reaching out towards the now floating Wayne.

"Mama, do I get to save the world too?" Llin said, clambering up the chair into Raven's lap.

"Eventually. Now split off by age everyone, you know the drill," the empath said, stroking her daughter's purple hair and depositing her carefully on the floor.

Ahti, Joy, Llin, and Wayne moved towards Starfire out the door and turned left towards the training gym.

Corbin, 'Belle, and Zong hung back in Raven's room, Corbin's head hanging out the door.

"Where is he?" the pale boy asked, "He's taking forever."

"My dad does _not _take forever Bubblebutt," Abelle said, snapping her fingers sassily in Corbin's face.

"Shut up," Corbin replied and smacked the snickering Zong on the arm.

"Hey now, violence is never the option unless you're fighting evil villains," Cyborg said sarcastically as he strode down the hall towards the little group, "you all ready to hack some computers?"


End file.
